A Collaborative Workflow to Expand Taxonomic Coverage in the Catalogue of Life eXtended Release through Plazi-Mediated Data

time: 4:55 pm (Bogotá)
Presenter: Camila Plata (COL)
Authors: Donat Agosti (Plazi), Markus Döring (COL), Diana Hernández-Robles (COL), Guido Sautter (Plazi), Felipe Lorenz Simões (Plazi), Olaf Bánki (COL)

The Catalogue of Life (COL) compiles species names across all taxonomic groups in collaboration with taxonomic communities. Keeping up to date with newly described taxa remains a challenge for both COL and its network. To address this and help close long-standing taxonomic gaps, an enhanced assembly process has been developed over the past two years. As a result, the recently launched Catalogue of Life eXtended Release integrates data from over 27,000 sources. Here, we detail Plazi’s contribution and the collaboration between the two initiatives.Approximately 26,000 papers processed by Plazi, originating from journals such as the EJT, Zootaxa, and PhytoKeys among other 190, are integrated. This has been critical for addressing gaps, particularly in the highly diverse insect groups, which is not fully covered by dedicated taxonomic communities. Plazi mediated data contributes around 90,000 unique names from which over 60% represent insect names, and 5% of names of species described in the last 5 years.Plazi and COL have worked together for the past two years to create a workflow to maximize gap coverage. This collaboration includes the use of the Catalogue of Life Data Package (ColDP) standard, data quality checks, adding treatment citations, improved classification accuracy, enhanced completeness, reduced inaccuracies in treated data and ChecklistBank enhancements. Currently, checklists derived from the journals cited above are integrated into Catalogue of Life in under two weeks, significantly improving data availability for COL’s usage.As vetted catalogues continue to contribute species, Plazi’s relative share decreases, and priority shifts to those authoritative sources. We are testing a feedback loop in which COL’s constituent checklists evaluate Plazi’s mediated data. This helps taxonomists integrate newly described species into their checklist and uncover recurring issues, which are promptly addressed to ensure higher-quality releases and better workflows.